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On the subject of 'Chillum' again, does anyone understand Malleus' cryptic remark here?

QUOTE

::*Chillum does seem to be such a delicate flower; happy to dish it out, but not at all keen to take it. Some may indeed wonder why he's so often at the centre of these stupid and childish "civility" spats, but not me. I know why, and it ain't pretty. --[[User:Malleus Fatuorum|Malleus]] [[User_talk:Malleus_Fatuorum|Fatuorum]] 14:15, 7 March 2010 (UTC)http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=348331299

Some people have no other happiness than to ensure that members of the public abide by a certain set of rules. The rules don't matter to them: it is their job to make sure that they are followed. Think of the scary official characters you meet at an airport. If you step over that yellow line which is exactly five feet in front of the passport-checking booth, you know what happens. If there is one small mistake in the way you filled in the 10-page landing form, God help you.

Wikipedia admins fall in the latter class, don't they? Law/security enforcement officers. They don't need to be smart, they just need to battle constantly against the hordes of people who want to step over the yellow line.

Bad analogy. They are more like the burly guys who guard the doors at exclusive nightclubs, selecting those few who will be invited in. So in a sense, they are the ones who choose, on the basis of the "house POV," those who will be permitted to step over the yellow line, because Wikipedia rules are nothing if not flexible.

QUOTE(powercorrupts @ Sun 7th March 2010, 1:55am)

It's the 'spirit of Wikipedia' that gets abused. We cannot do anything about editors ignoring it, but the idea is that admin aren't supposed to. Showing bad faith in the editor you've never met before, putting your "POV" (from emotionalism to subject bias) before the central policies. Failing to be friendly before threatening. Ignoring clear consensus when you are supposed to remind people of it. Not even believing that it's your job to be a 'Wikipedian' before anything else. Simply not behaving like an admin.

According to his talk page, Chillum is now retired after yet another round of hilarity with a good content/lousy civility editor.

Not even a lousy civility editor. I know "KD Tries again" in real life (from about 25 years ago). He is one of the most consistently polite human beings I have met. He was simply complaining, in his polite way, about Chillum deleting a message from his talk page.

The present case overlooks the possibility that conduct as well as discourse can be uncivil. As far as I can see, Chillum unilaterally deleted content from some twenty editors' talk pages yesterday, without introduction, explanation or apology. That strikes me as both unusual and uncivil. Nor was he able to offer a coherent reason when challenged.

Personally, I thought Chillum's "you don't own your talk page" significantly ruder than Malleus's "waste of space." But maybe that is because it was aimed at me.

At a certain point, this becomes like debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. The array of admin abuses at Wikipedia is a never-ending source of wonder, a kaleidoscopic display of all that is venal and treacherous in human interaction. Once a year, with the DICK of Distinction awards, we attempt to take a sort of snapshot out of the continual flux of admin abuse, but we should not assume that we have captured the true essence of what can only be properly conceived as a truly transcendent pile of dog shit.

Indeed. If one focuses on the personal qualities that go into making an abusive admin and uses that as the metric, you are actually more likely to come up with the name of a not very well known admin than a truly notorious one.

The answer, as it turns out, is simple: he is doing practically nothing to live up to his rather considerable Hasten The Day! potential. Instead of engaging in ba-telle and general drama-whoring all over "the wiki" like Durova, he spends nearly all of his "on wiki" time and energies tending to his little walled garden on WP, i.e., the "WikiProject U.S. Roads" and the road articles that they WP:OWN. As self-appointed and largely unchallenged Autobahnenfuehrer, he has drained the road articles of even what little color or controversy a road article might otherwise have. You rarely if ever read of kickbacks, rigged bidding, routing controversies, construction/repair delays, or appalling cost overruns. A brief paragraph on a dangerous curve is about as close as they ever get to controversy. Indeed, one of his gauleiters has openly exulted in the fact that WP road articles are nearly completely devoid of any information that the general motoring public would find interesting or useful.

For every truly notorious abusive admin of WP, there must be at least three or four equally abusive but utterly uninteresting wiki-wonk admins not unlike Der Autobahnenfuehrer. He is truly one of the greyest of all the little grey men of WP. What a waste! At one time, I had such high hopes for the boy.

At a certain point, this becomes like debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. The array of admin abuses at Wikipedia is a never-ending source of wonder, a kaleidoscopic display of all that is venal and treacherous in human interaction. Once a year, with the DICK of Distinction awards, we attempt to take a sort of snapshot out of the continual flux of admin abuse, but we should not assume that we have captured the true essence of what can only be properly conceived as a truly transcendent pile of dog shit.

Indeed. If one focuses on the personal qualities that go into making an abusive admin and uses that as the metric, you are actually more likely to come up with the name of a not very well known admin than a truly notorious one.

The answer, as it turns out, is simple: he is doing practically nothing to live up to his rather considerable Hasten The Day! potential. Instead of engaging in ba-telle and general drama-whoring all over "the wiki" like Durova, he spends nearly all of his "on wiki" time and energies tending to his little walled garden on WP, i.e., the "WikiProject U.S. Roads" and the road articles that they WP:OWN. As self-appointed and largely unchallenged Autobahnenfuehrer, he has drained the road articles of even what little color or controversy a road article might otherwise have. You rarely if ever read of kickbacks, rigged bidding, routing controversies, construction/repair delays, or appalling cost overruns. A brief paragraph on a dangerous curve is about as close as they ever get to controversy. Indeed, one of his gauleiters has openly exulted in the fact that WP road articles are nearly completely devoid of any information that the general motoring public would find interesting or useful.

For every truly notorious abusive admin of WP, there must be at least three or four equally abusive but utterly uninteresting wiki-wonk admins not unlike Der Autobahnenfuehrer. He is truly one of the greyest of all the little grey men of WP. What a waste! At one time, I had such high hopes for the boy.

There is a strong impression sometimes that there are a set number of notorious admin in existence who are too politically strong to be desysopped - I think the unknown admin can be obscured by this sometimes. To a degree, it comes from here as well as WP. At the RfC on Community de-Adminship, the oppose voters (and largely admin) are often saying that there are always a just a 'notorious few' bad admin the current system is able to deal with them. I don't agree with CDA (we need to fix the root of the problems), but the truth is that scores if not hundreds of admin will be potentially under fire. When they are given the bit, admin, within a few easily-learnt boundaries, can pretty much do what they want.

At a certain point, this becomes like debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. The array of admin abuses at Wikipedia is a never-ending source of wonder, a kaleidoscopic display of all that is venal and treacherous in human interaction. Once a year, with the DICK of Distinction awards, we attempt to take a sort of snapshot out of the continual flux of admin abuse, but we should not assume that we have captured the true essence of what can only be properly conceived as a truly transcendent pile of dog shit.

Indeed. If one focuses on the personal qualities that go into making an abusive admin and uses that as the metric, you are actually more likely to come up with the name of a not very well known admin than a truly notorious one.

The answer, as it turns out, is simple: he is doing practically nothing to live up to his rather considerable Hasten The Day! potential. Instead of engaging in ba-telle and general drama-whoring all over "the wiki" like Durova, he spends nearly all of his "on wiki" time and energies tending to his little walled garden on WP, i.e., the "WikiProject U.S. Roads" and the road articles that they WP:OWN. As self-appointed and largely unchallenged Autobahnenfuehrer, he has drained the road articles of even what little color or controversy a road article might otherwise have. You rarely if ever read of kickbacks, rigged bidding, routing controversies, construction/repair delays, or appalling cost overruns. A brief paragraph on a dangerous curve is about as close as they ever get to controversy. Indeed, one of his gauleiters has openly exulted in the fact that WP road articles are nearly completely devoid of any information that the general motoring public would find interesting or useful.

For every truly notorious abusive admin of WP, there must be at least three or four equally abusive but utterly uninteresting wiki-wonk admins not unlike Der Autobahnenfuehrer. He is truly one of the greyest of all the little grey men of WP. What a waste! At one time, I had such high hopes for the boy.

One admin that I came in contact with, both on-Wiki and off-Wiki, was (I believe) mentally ill. Fortunately, that individual is no longer active on WP -- and the less that is said about that poor soul, the better. (The last thing I want is that person returning because of my comments.)

For those who are active, I would say that Risker is probably the ultimate waste of Wiki-space.

What makes a bad debt collector? I am strong believer in the principle that people divide into basic personality types, and that these determine what job they are useful at. Some people like repetitive monotonous routine type work, and get upset when you try and give them more rewarding and useful work. That's fine, because you need people to do the monotonous work. Some people don't have an original thought in their heads, but possess finely-honed analytical skills. That's fine, they will be good accountants and auditors. A good debt collector is one who can be as menacing and threatening as possible without actually breaking the law. A bad one is one who doesn't get the money back. And so on.

Some people have no other happiness than to ensure that members of the public abide by a certain set of rules. The rules don't matter to them: it is their job to make sure that they are followed. Think of the scary official characters you meet at an airport. If you step over that yellow line which is exactly five feet in front of the passport-checking booth, you know what happens. If there is one small mistake in the way you filled in the 10-page landing form, God help you.

Wikipedia admins fall in the latter class, don't they? Law/security enforcement officers. They don't need to be smart, they just need to battle constantly against the hordes of people who want to step over the yellow line. They don't care if the person is a terrorist/teenage vandal, or a responsible member of the public who simply got the rules wrong.

So, what makes a bad admin? Nothing. Admins have to be the way they are, because the personality type attracted to the job (likes a badge, likes enforcing rules on reluctant people, dealing-with-crowds mentality) is best suited to the way that Wikipedia is set up. A system that tries to build a project using 'anyone who can edit' is bound to end up in exactly that way.

I have said it many times. It's not the people, it's the system.

So if I grok you correctly- Personality dictates role which dictates behavior?

While I grant you, that certain personality types are drawn to certain roles, I also think, based on the findings of the Milgram and Stanford Prison experiments, it is a bit more sinister than that.

Some people create the system and manipulate it to their own ends, others merely follow orders. Often the latter display what is called bicycle rider behavior, because they kick from the waist down and bow from the waist up, IE they mistreat those they regard as subordinates, yet are sycophants to their superiors. We see this a lot in pyramidal hierarchies such as Wikiland.

According to his talk page, Chillum is now retired after yet another round of hilarity with a good content/lousy civility editor.

Not even a lousy civility editor. I know "KD Tries again" in real life (from about 25 years ago). He is one of the most consistently polite human beings I have met. He was simply complaining, in his polite way, about Chillum deleting a message from his talk page.

"First off it is common practice to remove edits by banned users, the person posting was a banned user. Secondly you don't own your talk page. I look forward to anything else you may wish to discuss with me. Chillum (Need help? Ask me) 22:44, 6 March 2010 (UTC)"

According to his talk page, Chillum is now retired after yet another round of hilarity with a good content/lousy civility editor.

Not even a lousy civility editor. I know "KD Tries again" in real life (from about 25 years ago). He is one of the most consistently polite human beings I have met. He was simply complaining, in his polite way, about Chillum deleting a message from his talk page.

"First off it is common practice to remove edits by banned users, the person posting was a banned user. Secondly you don't own your talk page. I look forward to anything else you may wish to discuss with me. Chillum (Need help? Ask me) 22:44, 6 March 2010 (UTC)"

What a total prick...

I suppose at this point it would be fun to mess with Chillum's own TALK page, on the grounds that he doesn't own it, either. But that's what WP:POINT is for--- it's to keep Wickipaedos from facing the consequences of their own attitudes and policies. The place would completely implode if the same rules applied to everybody there.

"First off it is common practice to remove edits by banned users, the person posting was a banned user. Secondly you don't own your talk page. I look forward to anything else you may wish to discuss with me. Chillum (Need help? Ask me) 22:44, 6 March 2010 (UTC)"

What a total prick...

Posting it here doesn't mean as much as posting it on AN/I. No one has reported him for abuse lately.